


Venus

by laratoncita



Series: This Town I Live In [7]
Category: The Outsiders - S. E. Hinton
Genre: Abusive Relationships, Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Bisexual Female Character, Brother-Sister Relationships, Character Death, Child Abuse, Domestic Violence, Drug Dealing, Dysfunctional Family, F/F, F/M, Growing Up, Implied/Referenced Cheating, Implied/Referenced Sexual Assault, Implied/Referenced Underage Sex, Multi, Period Typical Attitudes, Street Justice
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-29
Updated: 2019-10-14
Packaged: 2020-10-21 00:17:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,525
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20684345
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/laratoncita/pseuds/laratoncita
Summary: Angela’s deadbeat husband dies while she’s at the bar.





	1. Chapter 1

“What the locust swarm left, the great locusts have eaten.  
What the great locusts have left, the young locusts have eaten.  
What the young locusts have left, other locusts have eaten.”  
Justin Torres, _We the Animals_

* * *

Tim shows up while she’s asking someone for a light.

By someone she means anyone. And by asking she means she pulled out a smoke and within ten seconds there were at least five lighters offered to her. It’s a Saturday, so Vicky’s off with one of her Brumly boys, and Angela’s husband told her not to wait up for him. She took it as permission to head out for a drink or two, something to unwind just a little bit. Better than being woken up in the middle of the night to her husband’s hands, trying to romance her like it’ll make up for all the times he never bothered.

She ain’t drinking the way she did that first month after Curly died, but that doesn’t mean she’s sitting pretty at home pretending she wants to be a wife. It’s over nine months since that call came, six since her husband got out of jail. Sal has been at her ear, lately, talking about babies and buying a bigger house and a bunch of other bullshit that sets her teeth on edge. Fridays while he’s out pretending her brother don’t hate him, she’s in the backseat of her car with Vicky. Best looking girls in Tulsa, that’s what men call them sometimes. Makes Angela want to laugh, imagines if they knew the truth.

It might get them killed, after all. Doesn’t keep Vicky from talking about Chicago, though. Angela’s not dumb enough to think she’ll ever get out of here, even if it feels like someone’s landed a hit when she lets herself pretend otherwise.

Tim walks up and knocks the lighters out of half the hands holding them, gets one hand around her upper arm and yanks her out of her seat.

“Jesus,” she says, fumbling as the cigarette falls out of her mouth, barely manages to catch it as Tim drags her out. The music is too loud, some rock balled playing over the noise of people inside. Tim probably can’t even hear her, but if he can he’s probably ignoring her. She doesn’t bother trying to drag her feet; all he’ll do is haul her over his shoulder and there’s plenty of nasty rumors about the Shepards as is. Some of them are even true.

Ain’t ‘til they’re finally outside, the dark bringing back the cold even as spring starts to heat up, that she finally pulls herself out of his grip. Says, jaw working like she’s looking for a fight, “Whadaya want, Tim?”

“Get in the car,” he says, already stalking towards his black Camaro. Pretty thing she takes out, sometimes, even if it gets her yelled at by husband and brother alike.

“Que tú haces,” she drawls, does a double take as she trails after him and notices he’s not alone. “Why’s ma with you?”

“She answered the damn call.”

“What?”

“Get in the car,” he says again. She stops, headlights bright; he must’ve known he’d be in and out.

“No.”

He opens his door. Looks at her, hard, his face so familiar she doesn’t even need full light to make sense of his expression.

“You gotta identify the fucking body, Angel,” he says, and then he gets in and leans on the horn. She jerks back. Tries not to stumble.

“What,” she says. Again, louder, when the noise doesn’t stop. “What did you say?”

Her ma sticks a hand out of her window. Motions to her to come close. Angela ignores her.

She goes towards Tim’s side, instead, peers into the open window and says, “What’re you on about?”

He shakes his head. Jaw tight. “Get in,” he repeats. “Ain’t you good at listening?”

“Tell me what the fuck you’re talking about,” she says, and when he looks at her it’s colder than she can remember.

“Sal,” he says, voice tight. “You gotta identify the body,” and when Angela stumbles, she has to catch herself on the car.

“What—”

“Basta con esto,” their ma says, her voice ruined from cigarettes and the bottle, “why you out so late, niña? Why is your husband out without you?”

“You ever ask yours that,” Angela snaps, and Tim reaches out, grips her arm too tightly.

“I ain’t telling you again.”

He lets go easy enough, lets her climb into the back seat. Her hands are shaking and she can’t figure out why. Tries to light a cigarette and it takes her a few tries, struggles to get the window rolled down afterwards.

“Who called?”

“Hospital,” Tim says, voice still hard. Their mother is muttering in the passenger seat, praying like she always does when things go to shit with them.

“What’d they—”

“They said they needed you,” he says, “and when I called no one answered. You wasn’t home, either.”

Angela says nothing.

Their mother says, “What kind of wife—”

“No empieces,” Tim says to her. The tension is unbearable; reminds Angela why she moved back in with Sal as soon as they let him out of the joint that winter. Doesn’t matter how crazy they drive each other. There are few things worse than the Shepard home, and only half of it is because of her mother’s husband.

The rest of the ride is fueled by their mother’s frantic prayers. Angela can envision the rosewood beads perfectly, her mother’s hands twisting them in her grip as she jumps from one prayer to the next. Angela ain’t been to mass in years, didn’t even get married in the church. She’s pretty sure her mother hates her for it.

That’s not the only thing she hates about her, but it’s a big one, Angela thinks.

Her ma doesn’t even get of the car. Tim says nothing to her, marches inside instead with Angela trailing after him. All in all it doesn’t take long, really. Later, Angela will try to replay it in her head and it passes by too fast for her to get a grip on it. White walls, white noise, the blank faces of every nurse they pass.

When they get to the morgue it hits her—the smell of antiseptic, bleach, something like plastic. The gravity of the situation. What happens if it _is_ Sal? She turns to Tim and says, “Don’t make me do this.”

“Ma’am,” the woman leading them says, like Angela ain’t clearly all of eighteen years old, still not done with high school even, “I understand—”

“You don’t,” she snaps, and then Tim puts his hand on her shoulder. Squeezes, too tight. Hands her off to the woman and she inhales, sharp, as they pass through the doors. Says, teeth gritted, “My brother coulda identified him, too.”

“You’re next of kin, sweetheart,” she says, and Angela doesn’t need to get close to the body to tell which is his. Ain’t like they covered him up or anything, still in the clothes he was wearing when he walked out the door that evening.

“No,” she says, when the woman gently pushes her forward, “I can—it’s him.”

“Ma’am,” she says, not unkindly, but not half as nice as she could be, “we need to be sure—”

“You think I don’t know my own husband?” she snaps, takes half a step forward, stops. “It’s him.”

Sal was twenty when he married her, a month or two short of her sixteenth. Angular face, eyes like honey. Courthouse wedding, Angela in a new dress bought on sale, her mother with a pinched mouth in all of the photos they have. Tim didn’t even show up, let Curly give her away. Her chest aches at the thought. Curly who threw fists at Sal when the news hit. Who used to pick her up from their home when she’d call as a last resort, asking for someone—anyone—to help. Picked her up the night they sent Sal to jail, even, just a few days before _he_ shipped out. She can barely breathe, suddenly.

“Mrs. Rosas—” The syllables twist in her mouth.

“Don’t,” Angela says. The woman looks at her. Must see grief and assume it’s for Sal. What a joke.

“Alright, sweetheart,” she says, and leads her back out the door, Tim chewing on his thumbnail like he actually liked Sal. “We have coun—”

“Let’s go,” Angela snaps, doesn’t wait for Tim to follow her. Stalks her way back to the car, really, can’t even hear Tim. Thinks of her husband’s face and how she didn’t even get to see Curly’s before they buried him.

“Fue él?” their mother asks as soon as Tim’s back in the driver’s seat. She didn’t say a word to Angela. Better that way.

“Yeah,” he says, car coming back to life with a purr.

Their mother sniffs. Angela can still hear those rosary beads moving against each other. Remembers sitting at her knee after her daddy died, after her uncle Teo did. The way the words sounded like music from her mother’s mouth, before all she could remember to do was yell. The way the prayers could erase all the hurt they each carried inside them.

It’s late; it’s been late, even before Tim showed up at the bar. The roads are dark, an endless stretch of nothing that Angela can’t even distract herself with.

“Qué fue,” their mother asks, and Tim grunts.

“Didn’t say.”

“What did they tell Ángela?”

“Nothing,” Angela says, at the same time Tim answers, “They just wanted to know if it was him.”

“Favor de—” their mother cuts herself off. Angela tries not to groan, can hear the reprimanding come from a mile away. Maria Shepard likes to preach; sometimes she’ll do it without a bottle in her hand. Angela hates that most. “You are both horrible children.”

“Here we go,” Tim says, as Angela presses her forehead against her window. It’s cold. Not like she was drunk to start with, but now she’s just tired. Doesn’t want to ask where Tim’s taking her. Thinks of that empty house that she wanted out of and that Sal wanted her to fill up with babies. The nausea hits suddenly.

“Dos inútiles,” Maria hisses, “after all I have done for you—”

Angela used to be able to imitate her accent perfectly. The dropped _h_, _th_ transforming into a whole new sound. Used to put on the ratty old apron they had in the kitchen and wave a spoon around scolding Curly, whose laugh could fill up the room without worry. Their uncle Teo caught them once, about lost his lunch he laughed so hard.

“What’ve you ever done for us,” Angela says, voice flat, and she shouldn’t have, but she did.

“_What_ did you say?”

“Angel,” Tim says, a warning, but it’s too late.

“Niña,” their mother hisses, “tu marido apenas muerto y tú en la calle—”

“I didn’t know he was—”

“Why are you not at home?” she demands, “Who were you with? You run around with—with esa tejana mugrosa—”

“Hey now,” Tim says, “I like the Bernals just fine—”

“Ya!” she snaps, “Your sister running around como una salvaje, you are not an animal, I did not raise you to—”

“You didn’t raise me at all—”

“Y tu esposo,” she says, louder, “Dios, que hiciste? Why is he not in his house with his wife? What are you not doing right?”

“Are you mad I’m coming home, ma?” Angela says, knowing what’s coming even as the words leave her mouth, “Mad you can’t pawn me off to a man no more?”

The car’s dead silent for a long minute, and then her ma twists in the front seat, reaches over, and grabs Angela by her hair.

“Pinche _desgraciada_,” she shouts, and yanks, Angela not expecting it. It all happens very fast. She goes unwillingly, her head slamming into the back of the seat, and then scrabbles to get a grip on her mother. Her nails dig into skin, drag downwards. “Después de todo lo que he hecho por ti—”

“You ain’t done shit!” she hisses, trying to smack at her ma with her free hand. She’s on her knees in the front seat, though—means she’s having an easier time of it than Angela. Doesn’t help that it’s too dark to see anything. “You’re a fucking joke—” Her hand stings across Angela’s face; she shouts more from outrage than pain. “Let _go_!”

“Jesus fucking—” Tim takes a hand off the steering wheel, tries to stop their mother from getting any more riled up, “calm the fuck down! Ma, ya, basta con esto—”

“Esta pinche niña,” their mother shouts, “me tienes harta, tan inútil, sin vergüenza—”

“What,” Angela snaps, finally managing to grab onto the hand in her hair, “’cause I don’t listen to the shit you say? Eres una puta borracha—”

Her mother lets go of her, but it’s only because she manages to throw her back against the door. Her head hits the window with far more force than it did the passenger seat, a solid _thunk_ that has Tim cussing, veering to the side in seconds. Pulls over faster than expected, or maybe she’s more hurt than she thought.

“What the _fuck_ is wrong with you,” he shouts, and Angela somehow manages to get the door open, half-crawls out of the car and into the dark. Road cold against her skin.

“Déjala,” she hears her mother say, dirt under her palms, “she can walk.”

“You’re crazy,” Tim tells her, and she hears the sound of a car door opening. She picks herself up, head throbbing. Flinches when Tim touches her shoulder. “Angel. You okay?”

“Ain’t the worst she’s done,” Angela says, turning to him, and he hisses, touches her temple where it feels tender. The moon bathes everything gray—if she weren’t sure she was about to be sick, she might almost admire it. Seems like something Vicky’d like to point out.

“’S gonna bruise, kid.”

“Like you care,” she says, feeling younger than eighteen suddenly. Feels seventeen and sixteen and every year under that, all at once, like every single hurt has decided it’s time to make itself known. Her face is hot, eyes burning. “I told you I didn’t wanna do this.”

“’S your _husband_,” he says, scowling, “next of kin, shit, Angel, you think they was gonna let me identify the body?”

“He was your fucking brother-in-law,” she snaps, taking a step away from him, onto the street. He reaches towards like he’s worried—doesn’t seem to realize it’s just them three sad Shepards on the road. “Christ, what I need to see him like that, huh?”

“He was your husband,” Tim says again. There’s something guilty about the way it sounds.

Angela bares her teeth. “What, you still think he was your buddy? Your friend who’d run drop-offs with you, the one who fucked your fifteen-year-old sister?”

“Watch it,” he says, voice going cold so sudden it surprises even her, and she knows him best, now, always has, “don’t fucking—”

“You got real mad, huh,” Angela says, slowly walking away from him, backwards, not trusting him not to make a grab at her if she turns her back, “that he was fucking me, but not ‘cause I was so underage que I wasn’t even peluda. You handed me over like it was nothing.”

“You said you were—”

“None’a you cared,” she says. Feels the hysteria building. “Only Curly, he was the only one’a you bastards who actually tried to fucking fix shit for me, didn’t matter what it was—”

“Ya, you’re talking crazy,” Tim says, and reaches for her, frowns when she takes another step away from him. Behind him, their ma leans on the horn, the sound sudden and loud on the mostly empty road.

“Go fuck yourself, you crazy bitch!” Angela shouts, and then looks at Tim, says, “Curly’s the only one who was ever good to me and he’s dead.”

“Who you think raised you?” Tim says, “You think it was ma? You think it was Curly? It was me, chiquilla. I took care of you both.”

“You sold mota,” Angela snaps, “you brought Salomón around and look where that got me. He’s dead.”

His jaw goes tight. She tosses her head back, feeling like she’s about to completely lose it, hair falling around her face, the liquor in her system maybe gone or maybe making her act like this. She doesn’t know. She doesn’t care.

“Ya,” their mother calls. She’s standing outside of the car now, jacket on over her nightgown, eyes sunken. She looks exhausted. Angela feels nothing but hate when she looks at her. “Vámonos.”

“You ain’t take care of me right,” she says, slowly, still looking at their mother. She wonders if Tim gets it. “You tried, alright, you tried. Stopped her damn husband that third or fourth time he went after me, but that ain’t—”

“Third?” he says, and when she looks at his face she feels herself go pale. “The fuck you talking ‘bout. Third time? He got to you before that?”

She can’t blame that slip-up on anyone but herself. Thinks of how her stepfather’s body went through the back door, thinks of how their mother shouted that she was a liar. Another wave of nausea hits her; feels like she’s got sea-legs, suddenly.

“Tim,” she says. Takes a step close to him, instead of away.

“Get in the car,” he says, and turns on his heel. Stalks towards their mother fast enough that she presses herself against the car like it’ll stop him. Angela follows but she can’t keep up.

“Qué?”

“Ma,” he says, stopping close to her. Voice drops, low and dangerous. “I’m gonna kill your fucking husband.”

Their mother’s face twists up. “Qué dijo?” she says. Demands. Looks at Angela and shakes her head, desperate, suddenly. “Ya sabes que es mentirosa—”

“Si no fueras mi mama,” Tim says, voice so flat it’s scary, “I’d beat the shit out of you. You want me to throw you out with your husband, fine, pero lo voy a matar, and I’m gonna like it. Get in the fucking car.” He looks at Angela. Says, “You too, Angel,” and when she listens the car is too quiet.

“They will take you to jail,” their mother says, English still accented after so long in the States. “I am not going to stop them.”

“You gonna call the cops on me, ma?” Tim says, starting up the car. “I’m the only son you got left.” When she says nothing, he continues, “I know you wish it was me who died and not Curly. I wish it was me, too.”

“Sálvame Dios,” she breathes, and in the back seat, Angela starts to laugh.


	2. Chapter 2

The three of them spill out onto the lawn like marbles underfoot.

“Don’t fucking start,” Tim snarls, and their mother stops dead in her tracks, still reaching out to him like she has any hope of stopping him. Like she’s had any hope in years.

“No lo hagas—”

“Did you know?” he says, and he towers over her. It’s late enough that there’s no one around to see the Shepards make another scene. Angela knows Tim would never lay a hand on their mother. Doesn’t mean it don’t look like he’s about to.

“She _lies_—”

“Vete a la verga,” Angela says on an exhale, and Tim shakes their mother off him, storms up the steps and heads straight for their mother’s room, their ma at his heels. Angela drifts after them, listless. The alcohol’s made her tired, and she’s thinking of how Sal looked with his eyes closed, and she’s wondering if she’s supposed to miss him a certain way or none at all.

“Wake up,” she hears Tim shout, then a body hitting the floor, everyone’s voices are rising together, a cacophony that the neighbors are all too used to.

She’s not even inside yet. Leans her head against the screen door, instead, takes a deep breath. Thinks of every single man who’s ever touched her body. Sal who was twenty when he married her. Who was sweet up until that ring was on her finger, damning them both. The cold metal of it burns, now, that spring-summer night air not enough to keep the wind from chilling her. There’s a crash inside, more shouting. When she opens her eyes she can see movement.

It’s louder when she walks in. It happens so fast, but for Angela it’s like they’re moving underwater. Her ma close enough to tug at Tim but not close enough to stop him. Her stepfather on his back, Tim’s hand knotted in his shirt collar while the other swings down towards his face. Tim’s face is perfectly calm as he asks, “How many times did you touch her?”

“I never—”

Another hit to the face. “I caught you once. Try again.”

Her stepfather’s nose is bleeding. She sees it smear over his mouth and chin, teeth tinged pink. She says, voice dull and flat like Tim’s, “Do it matter?”

Tim pauses. Looks up at her. Their ma clutches at his shirt.

“Favor de Dios,” their ma says, “enough, enough, let’s—”

Tim punches her husband again. She starts screaming. Tim drags him up by the shoulders, throws him into the kitchen. From the sound of it, he crashes into the table and chairs, besides.

Their ma throws herself at him, clings to Tim like some broad in a bad movie. “Ya, ya, por favor, Tim—"

“I don’t wanna hit you,” he says to her, grabbing both her wrists in one hand, their profiles so similar for a second that Angela can’t breathe, “pero eso no quiere decir que no lo haré.”

He shoves her away from him and she stumbles, her feet giving out under her. She slumps to the ground, her voice a frantic mumble. When she looks up she’s unrecognizable to Angela—wild eyed, hair a mess. Not the great beauty she sees every time she passes that wedding photograph in the hallway. María reaches out to her and Angela flinches, gets dragged down to the floor. Her ma’s real strong even if she don’t look it. The liquor’s ruined her in a lot of ways, but her grip is too tight against her wrist, and Angela can almost hear what she says before she does it.

“Te gusta, eh,” their ma says, shrill, “you like ruining things—”

Angela reaches out. Curls her fingers in her ma’s hair, nothing gentle about it like when she’s with Vicky, nothing good about the words on her tongue. “Quieres oír lo que me hizo tu esposo,” she says, not recognizing her own voice, ugly and twisted as it is. Her mother’s eyes tear up. “You’re a _joke_,” she tells her, and lets go.

Shakes away her mother’s touch like Tim did. Doesn’t matter if she tries not to be, anymore—her and Tim are the same. Always have been. Curly used to balance the three of them, the last of the Shepards, tiger-eyes and foul mouths and all. Angela’s pretty sure this is just how things are supposed to be, with them. Nothing but burnt bridges and split knuckles. She tilts her head, watches Tim’s back as he bends at the waist and takes ahold of their stepfather again.

She says, “I’m leaving,” and her mother stares. Tim’s keys are on the floor, like he dropped them as soon as he realized he had better things to do, and they’re cold in her grip.

Tim never lets her drive the Mustang. She thinks this might be the one time he won’t care, the sounds of their voices—her mother, her stepfather, Tim—mixing together and lost to the night air when she steps off the porch again. Before she got married it was just as bad: their mother at their throats, three ungrateful children making her suffer. Curly always took it best out of all of them, surprisingly, kept his head down and his mouth shut. Angela couldn’t help but argue right back, and it got her smacked more than once.

Tim would disappear back to his gang and Curly would track down Vicky and pretend he loved her. Angela wonders if that’s why the two of them fit so well together now. Does Vicky see the last remnants of Curly when she looks at Angela? She doesn’t think so. Thinks it’s almost a joke, that Vicky grins at her the way she does, all her teeth showing, nothing self-conscious about it. Nothing uncomfortable about how she tucks Angela’s hair behind her ear, how she puts her arms around her in the backseat of Angela’s shitty Chevrolet.

In another life, maybe, the two of them get out of town and it’s together. Angela’s not dumb enough to think it’ll happen in this one.

That doesn’t stop her from heading to Brumly, though. It’s all the same out here, boys dumber than rocks even if a few of them are nice enough to look at. Solis don’t throw too many parties at his place, what with the two kids he got out of his ex-wife, but she knows where he lives. Of course she does. Tim’s been working with him too long, now, to not know.

He ain’t happy to see her, but that might be because of the wailing infant in his arms.

“Angel,” he says, like he has any right to call her that, “don’t think your brother’ll be too happy to know you’re on my doorstep at three in the morning.” She can almost see the exact moment he realizes the absolute mess she is. Her face stings, still, from her mother’s hands on her. He opens the door a little wider, expression twisting from unimpressed to concern like he actually cares. “Christ, what happened to you?”

“Got into it,” she says, and then, because the news’ll spread anyway, and Solis won’t let it slip that it was her who told him, “Sal’s dead. You seen Bernal?”

“He’s dead?”

“Yeah,” she says, and asks again, “You seen Bernal?”

“Folks’re at Guti’s,” he says, shifting the baby from one arm to the other. Angela thinks it’s a boy. “Bernalita ain’t my problem.”

“’Course not,” she says, “only one who’s ever had a handle on her is her sister.”

“That’s a stretch,” Solis says, grin like a flash. “That all? I ain’t got the patience for any more Shepard drama, querida. Your brother finally gut your husband, o qué?”

She blinks. Wants to tell him he’s lucky. Wants to damn him for putting that idea in her head. She says nothing, though, turns back to her car and pretends like his huff of laughter don’t bother her. Tim ain’t made it a secret that he and Sal don’t get along. Sometimes it seemed like he hated Angela for it, too. For being dumb enough to run around with him, like he wasn’t saving her in some ways from all the bullshit they had going on at home. Tim might not have ever tried to save her from _him_, but he’d run his mouth, anyway. Talked shit while Angela tried to lick her wounds. Threatened to wring their necks. She wonders if he finally got the chance to, tonight.

Jaime Gutierrez don’t live too far from Solis, and it’s hard to miss the loudest house on a street block regardless. Front door’s unlocked—figures. Half the men here are probably packing. Angela gets double takes; Brumly ain’t Shepard territory, never has been, never wanted to be. Up until ’67 they barely got along, and even now it ain’t much more than business.

One of Solis’ men leans real heavy on Angela, arm over her shoulder, breath reeking of liquor. “You lost, borreguita?”

She stares at him until he flinches. Gets his hands off her. She says, “Y la Vicky?”

“Bernalita?” he says, nods upstairs, “Con su novio.”

“She ain’t got a boyfriend,” she says, ignoring how the thought makes her stomach turn. She stomps up the stairs, doesn’t even have to burst into a room to find her girl. Vicky as good as crashes into her on the way out of the bathroom, lipstick mostly gone from her face and her eyebrows furrowed when she realizes who she’s got an armful of.

“Angel?” she says, and the name sounds better on her mouth than anyone else’s, “What’re you doing here?”

Angela almost says _Looking for you_. Bites her tongue instead. Her fingers are curled around Vicky’s wrist, and she says, “You busy?”

“Nah,” Vicky says. Angela can smell someone’s cologne on her. “Are you drunk?”

“I just got back from the hospital,” Angela says, “Sal’s dead.”

“What?” Vicky’s eyes are huge. Angela knows she looks like her sister—same mouth, same chin, cow eyes with thick lashes that can swallow a man whole. Angela don’t often feel lucky she was born a woman. Sometimes she does. “He’s _dead_? What happened?”

“Didn’t ask,” she says, squeezes her wrist. Feels weak, suddenly. Safe, maybe, with Vicky’s hand a gentle weight on her shoulder. “I. Tim took me.”

“Angela,” she says, voice soft, “sweetheart. Let’s get out of here.”

When Angela smiles it’s with all her teeth. Maybe it makes Vicky flinch. Maybe she feels good about it anyway.

She lets Vicky drive, shakes her head when she offers to let her crash at hers.

“You really wanna go back home?” Vicky says. She sounds worried.

“’Course not,” she says. It’s nearly four. They’re drifting across the city, quiet still, even if the sky is promising a sunrise soon. “Ya te dije.”

“You ain’t told me nothing I didn’t already know,” Vicky says. “How’d you find me, anyway?”

She sounds curious. Angela, staring out the window, says, “Solis.”

“Ah,” Vicky says. Puts on a dreamy front, “Isaiah’s real sweet to me.”

“He thinks you’re a kid.”

“He’s good with kids,” she says. Angela wrinkles her nose.

“You don’t even like babies,” she says to her, “you’ve said so yourself.”

“Don’t mean I can’t admire the man,” she says.

This late at night her accent comes back. Used to be that it was only when she was angry that that Texan twang came out. Angela’s spent enough hours in the dark with her to get used to it. She sounds like something out of a dream, sometimes, when the two of them are tangled up together, fingers laced, talking about what their siblings have gotten up to without them and the ways they’ve tried to make it seem like it was all for the best. Vicky might love her big sister best, but that don’t absolve the girl of anything. Angela’s said the same of Tim. She’s not one to change her mind.

Vicky says, “You think Tim really killed him?”

She’s the only one who knows the full story. Or all of the stories, the ones that Angela pretends aren’t there. How young Angela was, the first time someone got their hands on her. How much she’s hated every single moment since. She knows about the mess with Bryon, the way Curly’s death gutted her, the way she loves and hates Tim in turns. She doesn’t say a word about it to anybody, just holds her hand and kisses her without expecting it to make everything better.

Vicky tells her _I love you_ and doesn’t make Angela say it back, no matter how badly Angela wants to. A part of her wishes she would. Maybe she’d have a reason to run away from whatever the hell this is, bad as she wishes she could sink into it forever.

Angela says, “No,” and believes it. She says, “My ma’ll throw us both out. She don’t care much for anything, anymore.”

“Thought she wasn’t drinking.”

Angela shrugs. “Don’t matter much,” she says, and then, “Solis thinks Tim killed Sal.”

Vicky says nothing. The silence makes Angela feel twitchy, suddenly.

“Well?” she says, finally. Voice demanding.

“What?” Vicky says, “You think he’s telling the truth?”

“I didn’t think it at all.”

She says, voice carefully neutral like she’s trying to keep from spooking her, “Tim ain’t one to hand off his dirty work.”

“He let me marry him,” Angela says. Mouth bitter. “Over two years, I been married.”

“Sal was in jail for a lotta that,” Vicky says. “Been out a few months already.”

“What, you think Tim just snapped?” Even as she says it, Angela knows it’s not the case. Tim’s meticulous. He doesn’t act before he’s ready. He’s reliable like that.

“Solis ain’t like the rest of Brumly,” Vicky says. “Lis always says he’s the smartest out of all of them.”

“That don’t mean much.”

“Means something,” Vicky says, and Angela hates to think she’s right.

They’re silent for a long time after that. Vicky drives them to her place, asks again if Angela won’t just come up.

“You gotta sleep,” she says, the two of them in the alley behind her house, her hand soft and gentle on Angela’s face. She’s trying to make eye contact but it’s too much for Angela, now. All she can see is Sal, and her mama’s husband, and Tim with his fist swinging. She wishes she were asleep. She wishes all of this—save maybe Vicky—were just a dream.

“I gotta check on Tim,” she says instead. “Might need to bail him out.”

“Ain’t that what his girl is for?”

“Her daddy don’t like him none,” Angela says, “he ain’t gonna risk him answering the phone this early.”

“Late.”

“The sun’s rising,” Angela says, tilting her head towards the tangerine starburst spreading across the sky. Ignores the way it makes the youngest Bernal girl frown.

Vicky swallows, says, “Yeah,” and kisses her before getting out of the car.

It’s true that she needs sleep. Angela can feel the exhaustion in her teeth, clenches her fingers on the steering wheel and somehow manages to get home. It looks about as bad as she expected, not that she’s surprised. Blood smeared underfoot, a smashed picture frame—not the one of her parents, though. She follows the smell of antiseptic and cigarettes, finds Tim sitting at the kitchen with a Marlboro between his lips. She raises his eyebrows.

“Ain’t you a sight for sore eyes,” she drawls. His knuckles are wrapped up. There’s a shadow of a bruise across his jaw.

“Mick give you that, or ma?” she says. Moves to the stove, pulls down what she needs for coffee from the cupboards. Every mug her ma owns is chipped; she’s not sure how she forgot that.

“Where you been?” Tim asks. He doesn’t even sound irritated, the way he used to, when she was still living here and running wild as anything. He used to try and discipline her the only way he knew how and she’d fight back just as hard. Nobody’s ever been able to keep her under their thumb. Angela takes pride in it, sometimes.

“Around,” she says. Sits down across from him and takes in their shared eyes, the stubble on his face, white shirt stained with blood and dirt. Thinks of how Solis asked her if Sal was dead because of him. Remembers the guilt in his voice while they stood out in the middle of the street, how it was her ma who answered the phone and not him. She asks him, “Where’s ma?”

He shrugs. “Hospital, I’d say,” he tells her. Exhales a steady stream of smoke. “Not sure how hot her husband’s doing.”

“I didn’t ask you to do all’a that,” she says. Picks at her cuticles. “That was all a long time ago.”

“I know I’m a fuck up,” he says, and when she looks at him he looks more serious than she can remember him ever being. “But if I’d known, Angel. I wouldn’ta let none of that shit happen to you.”

She swallows. Says, “You think you can protect me?”

“I should’ve,” he says.

She inhales. Smoke and coffee. Home, maybe. “You’re a good big brother, Tim,” Angela tells him, staring at him from across the table. Thinks of him picking her up from school, giving her money anytime she asked. “You always took care of me real good. Best you could. Curly did it better, but. He’s dead now. Don’t matter much.”

Tim doesn’t bother looking at her. She can tell he’s listening though. Watches the slow rise of his chest, the clench of his hands on the table.

Neither of her brothers liked it that she married so young. Sal used to run around with Tim, though. Maybe not his best friend but his buddy, anyway. All of that changed, of course, but Solis’ voice is still bouncing around her head. The bruises on his arms aren’t from their ma or from their stepfather. When she looks at his face she imagines she can see the truth. There’s too much pride there. All the Shepards…they’re all like this. Doesn’t matter if they married in like their ma or if they were cursed to the blood like the rest of them. Nothing but death has ever been able to stop them.

She says, knowing the truth already, “Tim. Did you kill my husband?”

“One day,” Tim says, words like molasses, from sleep or from simply _knowing_, “you’re gonna get outta here. You gonna miss me?”

Angela says, “I ain’t ever leaving Tulsa.”

Her daddy’s buried here. Her husband will be, soon. Doesn’t matter if she drops dead tomorrow or fifty years from now. She’ll end up buried right next to them.

“Yeah, you will,” he says, and looks at her real serious. Like it’s the two of them against the world again. He says, “I’m gonna miss you when you leave.”

“Don’t bother,” she says, hating the way he’s watching her. “I ain’t going nowhere.”

He reaches out. Curls his taped up fingers over hers and asks, “Who takes care of you, nena?”

“You do,” she says, after a long minute of just looking at him. Trying to make sense of it. Trying to reconcile Tim at twelve, a little gap-toothed, telling their stepfather to get bent for daring to put his hands on their mother, and him today, twenty-three, two men in the hospital because of him all in one night.

“Are you worried?”

“No,” she says, and she’s not lying. The police have nothing on them. Doesn’t matter if they haul him in and their ma tells nothing but lies. The truth is heavy between them for the first time in ages. Angela can feel it in her throat.

“Good,” he says, and stands up. He leans over, kisses her forehead. Cups her face and says, “I’m always gonna take care of you, Angel,” and then moves towards the stove, no doubt to finish making the coffee.

It’s a nice lie. Angela will give him that.

* * *

"Do you know what would happen if I let you go?"  
And I said, "What?"  
And he said, "You'd die."  
[...]  
"What happens when you die?"  
"Nothing happens," he said. "Nothing happens forever."


End file.
